Do you think you’re a critical thinker who’s smarter than those who define the rules of this shark-pond of crypto-currencies, and smarter than those who spread the lies (you’re already convinced of) in the first place?

Then you defy subjectivity and basic functions of the human psyche. Good for you.

If not, you may want to read my thoughts about what is happening here.

Let’s make a game out of your ability to distinguish between truth and lies. After you read this blog post, you go out and look for lies in articles and videos. It’s pretty easy.

Disclosure: I’m invested in IOTA, but the difference to those I mention here is: I never attack other projects or people, I just defend IOTA.

The daily routine. I get up, brush my teeth, make coffee, read social media. And then I correct lies about IOTA.

Lies and insults that originate not only from unknown trolls but also from renowned academics.

IOTA is a festering pile of shit, written by drooling morons, it is not fit for purpose, and it isn't even decentralized.

But how can this be?What are we missing here?Is IOTA a scam?Or do we see other forces at work, which seem surreal given the fact that many of those lies are presented by would-be solid sources?

I have made it my business to correct these lies and -out of context information- that can be read every day.

Every weekend I hold English and German podcasts on youtube and I present all the facts with their primary sources. This is a fundamental requirement, because we are not in a hip area but in a highly complicated, sensitive and not always easy to understand innovation river-delta, which not only wants to replace the sea of legacy systems with fresh water, but also has to ensure that it is not brackish water that it’s creating. This whole ecosystem was created in order to be an improvement, not a burden.

From the continent of crypto-currencies, several rivers are flowing into the technological ocean.

IOTA postulates to be the first clean, sustainable, fresh sweet water river, so naturally, other streams are unsatisfied and contaminate it as much as they can. And there are many.

IOTA continues to bring good news, collaborations and reasons to put it above a level of Bitcoin when it comes to the question: which project is more legit?

At this point, the minds are divided, but IOTA has an advantage in this regard.

IOTA, or better the Foundation as the supportive organisation is registered and recognised as a charitable foundation in Germany.

Of course, we have already seen unimaginable things. It could be possible that a scam could overcome even the highest legal organs in a highly developed country like Germany. There could also be an alien under your bed right now.
IOTA, however, has been in focus since the beginning of its development and had to prove itself against countless windmills and Goliath’s.

Which in this world only works with transparency, a lot of work and confidence building.

The alleged vulnerability in August 2017 has been a major publicity stunt in order to besmirch IOTA. No funds were ever at risk and the problem was no problem. Cold coffee.

Therefore, let’s take a look at the questions that really matter.

Who are the accusers?How exactly does IOTA counter the accusations?What exactly can end the discussion?

When I used the image of David against Goliath, I should have used Alfred Wegener against the establishment.

The continental drift is one of the basic scientific facts, everyone has agreed upon.

When Alfred Wegener postulated his results of research back in the early 1910’s, the scientific dinosaurs rejected his theory until the late 1950’s and he faced constant resistance as long as he was living. Part of that was that he described the continental drift slightly wrong (continental borders vs shorelines), another part was that the renowned geologists didn’t want to accept this new paradigm as they would lose their credibility.

The discussion reached a deadlock until he died in 1930 in Greenland. In the early 1960’s, researchers found evidence that he was indeed right and accepted his theory posthumously.

This is fairly different to today’s landscape. Today we have angry Twitter discussions, ad hominem and kardashian’esque behaviour even in scientific circles.

Today, we live in an interconnected world. Scientific results, opinions, and reactions are just one tweet away and we can support our claims with computers, and the global community of scientists and skilled autodidacts can participate when sensitive topics are discussed.

Three things, however, never changed.

First: The ability of the human psyche to stick to the opinion of the majority. Bandwagoning works and is rarely a choice of free will.

Second: Scientists still hate to lose their credibility.

As a result, the Semmelweis-reflex kicks in and hinders progress. From Wikipedia: “The Semmelweis reflex or “Semmelweis effect” is a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs or paradigms.”

A third reason that changed the behaviour of scientists changes also the whole discussion. I come to that at a later point. The cold coffee first.

In August 2017, IOTA fell victim to a coordinated attack that did not aim to protect people, provide technical assistance, or prevent a scam. No.
It was undoubtedly a plot of upsetting the research community against IOTA, so that it would suffocate in the strong headwind. Due to relentless work, clarification and presentation of facts, the headwind was reduced to a point where it’s merely a nuisance, but right now, as the biggest industrial fair, the Hannover Messe is happening, it starts to gain strength again as many magazines and “scientists” remind everyone how “bad” IOTA really is. Without facts, just via mob mentality. What a coincidence.

There are many rivers that form a delta and want to disrupt the sea of legacy systems.

Some rivers are larger, some smaller. A few are there for a long time and had to move mountains to reach the sea, and some are dirty.
The majority of rivers are held back due to technological dams.
There are even rivers that were never aiming to flood the ocean, just a private pond.
And many former whitewater are running dry these days.
There is much to win, and much to lose.
Everyone has skin in the game when it’s about money.

Who are the accusers?

Summarized: I didn’t find any accuser that is not invested in Bitcoin, Ethereum or connected projects like Zcash. Every single source is a dirty river that is looking to get the majority of the technological ocean. There is not even a single exception!
These people are not interested in an open and fair debate in order to support progress, they are solely protecting their money.

-Former Forbes/Nasdaq/Coindesk contributor Amy Castor. COI1 COI2COI3 (paid by venture capital company), (writing in favour of Bitcoin), (writing how to buy Zcash – she was also part of Zcash ad-campaign)

-Dozens of Cryptographers that are either falling prey to the Semmelweis reflex or supporting their colleagues with mob mentality.

The third point is: Cryptographers, magazines owned by venture capital companies such as Coindesk or Cointelegraph have a monetary interest in promoting the systems they invested in.

This scientific discussion shifted into an economic discussion.

Remember this whenever you read articles in the crypto-sphere: These are not the actions of independent scientist or magazines, these are the actions of the textbook homo oeconomicus that is acting as a rational agent to increase his financial situation and level of influence.

How exactly does IOTA counter the accusations?

IOTA countered allegations in several ways.

Open letters to everyone where they explain that at no point funds were at risk. Fact is: No one lost money except due to the price-collapse after the DCI-allegations.

What can end the discussion?

The IOTA Foundation has two very important processes in place that are nearly completed.

1) the Curl-p peer review by Cybercrypt

2) the peer review of the trinity wallet of the Accessec GmBH

Apart from that, there are developments behind the curtains that are also very important to form a practical version of IOTA vision.

‘Equilibria in the Tangle‘ is the fundamental and necessary research that is researching consensus, good and bad actors in the Tangle. This research is done by Dr.Serguei Popov, Olivia Saa, and Paulo Finardi

To draw a conclusion:

IOTA has become a transparent project that is actively researching and developing in lightspeed.

It’s regulated under German law and it’s solving the scalability and fee-issues of common Blockchains. Naturally not everyone likes this project because it ends the mining centralization of Bitcoin and others.

People follow their investment, scientists are people.

In the end, critical minds and critical investors decide if they believe biased sources that besmirch IOTA on every occasion or if they stick to official sources, transparency and global companies that decided to use IOTA over other blockchain/DLT projects.

Featured Image: India Today

A cryptocurrency trader and a stock market trader meet at a coffee store.

The stocks trader wears an expensive suit and the smile of a high school quarterback. Brown Lacoste shoes and his Aston Martin keys are completing the image of success, let alone his self-assured, cocky demeanor. A second, golden key tag says “tu casa es mi casa“, Wallstreet humor.

He worked several years to reach financial independence that goes way beyond filling his fridge with Moët.

Trading derivatives of mortgages is still profitable he thinks, as he scans the people around him. Even in 2018, ten years after the global economic apocalypse.

“Not everyone can be a winner. I guess these crickets will learn it the hard way when the next mortgage bubble destroys the futures of so many. Good to be on top, yikes!” he reminds himself.

The grayish hoodie sweater next to him orders a bagel and a coffee with milk.

Carl invested in cryptocurrency in 2015, when Ethereum came up for the first time. Yesterday, he watched a documentary about the “Big Short” – The perverted financial carousel almost destroyed society. Ironically, the easy gains of the stock market attracted lots of qualified, smart people. Physicists, mathematicians, “High-frequency trading” has become the exploitative face of the trading landscape as everyone is trying to reach the next percent ROI.

Automated bots are pushing fractions of numbers, a thousand times a second. Particle distribution models and statistic schemes are fuel for these lines of code that are fighting a war against competing bots on the backs of the working class. The obsessive efforts of these HF-traders creating these quant-bots ended in a subjective tunnel, that let them forget what they are trading there. Little green numbers are important, not the real-world consequences.

Wouldn’t it be better if we reach a time where the smart people are compensated for their efforts in their respective profession? The economization of the education system is a problem, he concludes.

“I don’t think this peafowl in a suit is one of the smart kids, though. I better get back home before I start a revolution” as he rescues a slice of tomato and flips a quarter into a cup of a homeless, that is sitting in front of the coffee store.

Carl studied sustainability and found relief in the vision of Satoshi Nakamoto, Vitalik Buterin, David Sønstebø and Come-from-Beyond.

Although cryptoland is rarely unified in their politics, they are in their understanding of what is needed and what not.

The world of stocks/derivative traders and cryptocurrency couldn’t be more different in terms of the outcome.

One side is aiming for individual profits, another one is aiming for a healthy globalization, equality, a better life for everyone. In theory at least.

In case of success, DLT’s will conquer most of the industries for the better.

In case of success, the Semmelweis reflex has been averted.

Today we know that the economic structure of expansion in the world is endless. If China can raise its per head income, other, cheaper countries and areas will produce next. Bangladesh, Africa, parts of the Middle East.

If they can also raise their per head income in a few years, there is no country left that can produce even cheaper.

Expansion on a global scale will find its nemesis in this model of globalization.

In case of success of distributed ledger technologies, though, we can create a landscape of automated cyber-physical systems, that can create value for all of us, without expansion and shifting the production locations.

If we look into the near future, these systems give us the opportunity to silence the bad voices, that tend to aim for an accumulation of wealth.

Instead, we can create a universal basic income.

This idea is not communistic, it’s solution oriented.

With a value-creating industry, we could ensure the adequate supply for everyone. Without expansion, without taking what’s his or hers.

Smart contracts, distributed hard drives, microtransactions.

Tamperproof elections, no mighty intermediaries, no hurdles to send value from Monaco to Somalia.

A world of opportunities opens up that looks so bright compared to the inequality, that can be easily identified, even in western countries, when you go into a coffee store and look around.

The sector model of Jean Fourastié, Allan Fisher and Colin Clark that describes the shifting sectors of industrial nations should be recognized as a model of a transformational period only.

Now, when we have the chance to use ways to face the problems of today, we should use them.

Cryptographic technologies are not for personal gain. That’s the old model.

La casa puede pertenecer a todos

The Tangle, Peaq.io, the Future – Interview with Robert A. Küfner, CEO of Nakamo.to

Today, I have the pleasure to present the interview I had with the creator and CEO of nakamo.to: Robert A. Küfner.

Nakamo.to is a Berlin-based company, that committed itself to innovation, business development and the creation of business models, using distributed systems -particularly the Tangle ledger of IOTA.

We have seen several livestreams, meetups, and articles about their work, that is giving us valuable information of what we can expect in the field of distributed ledger technologies and where we are heading.

Their latest meetup in Zug, with the Keynote-speaker Oliver Bussmann, President of the Cryptovalley in Zug, gave us a great overview of the status quo of cryptocurrencies and their impact.

Also interesting is their latest announcement: peaq.io -a project that will enable the tokenization of assets on the Tangle, which is comparable to the ERC20 layer on Ethereum.

Thank you, Robert, for the opportunity!

1. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, like how did you slide into the realm of cryptocurrency?

I first got involved in crypto back in 2010. I came across an article about Bitcoin and it shook my world. I knew then as I know now that the idea behind it was revolutionary. Back then though, it wasn’t a movement, it was a bunch of computer geeks having fun.

The more I learned about it though, the more I wanted to be a part of it, and in 2013 I founded the first publicly listed company to be focused solely on Distributed Ledger Technology, Smart Equity AG, with my good friend and business partner, Michael Geike.

DLT became my life. I become more and more involved in the space and eventually wound up speaking to Dr.Gavin Wood in London. Dr.Wood introduced me to the idea of smart contracts and I was instantly hooked and invested in the Ethereum crowd-sale, which would then go on to provide a basis for a lot of what we’re doing now.

I’ve always understood myself as an evangelist for a decentralized world and after following the developments in the space for so long I was eager to have a solid impact on it. After being introduced to IOTA early on by Florian Reike, I felt I had the right background, knowledge, and network in the cryptospace, as well access to incredible technology in the Tangle, and possibly most importantly, the right timing.

It’s been almost ten years since the launch of Bitcoin, but the Distributed Ledger Technology movement is only really taking a firm hold now – it feels like we’re talking about the development of the Internet in the early 90s.

2. When you created nakamo.to, what was the business model, the focus and the problems you wanted to solve?

nakamo.to has always been about connecting the real-world with the huge potential of Distributed Ledger Technology – that’s our slogan, our motto – it’s what the team lives by.

Our business model has evolved over time as we’ve realized just how huge the market for what we can deliver is. Initially, we wanted to focus all our attention on the peaq project. While we’re still doing that, we’ll also be taking on clients looking for DLT based software solutions with the help of Advanced Blockchain AG – and there are plenty of opportunities out there.

We’ll be helping all kinds of businesses to make the leap into the DLT world, and take full advantage of the countless benefits that come with doing so. The more companies make the jump into DLT, the closer the world will move towards a token economy.

3. Your new project peaq.io, which is comparable to the ERC-20 standard in Ethereum enables the tokenization of almost every value asset in the real world. Can you give us a small introduction to what your vision of peaq.io is and what it can enable that is not yet created?

The ICO world went crazy after people realized how easy it was to create their own tokens, but a lot of people were eventually let down by the underlying technology – blockchain. A lot of projects never really took off because of inherent drawbacks with blockchain, like scalability, transaction fees, and high running costs.

peaq.io is picking up where the ERC 20 left off. peaq is a token creation framework built on the Tangle network, making it possible to tokenize virtually anything you perceive to have value and trade or send it around the world in seconds. With the Tangle technology at our fingertips, we’re opening up a whole new dimension to the token economy, limited only by the imagination of those who choose to build on peaq.

peaq will make it possible for startups to go public on the day they’re created, giving them access to the capital they need to develop fast. Banks and financial institutions will finally be able to benefit from DLT thanks to the scalable, zero-fee framework that the DAG provides. It’s also not currently economically viable to trade stocks and shares on the blockchain because of ‘Gas’ prices and scalability limits – peaq will change this too. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it sheds light on the sort of potential we’re looking it. Many of the use cases for the platform are yet to be thought of.

4. During the presentation of peaq.io, a group of people in the IOTA slack were concerned that peaq.io would lead to a new ICO-storm, based on the Tangle. Can you give us your point of view about possible ICO’s and how we can ensure, that these kinds of crowdfundings are, not again, used in a bad way?

I think they make fair points, and to an extent I share their concerns – but one must keep in mind that it’s very difficult to weed out the bad projects from the good ones without imposing your views and opinions on them and therefore limiting the imagination of others – and ICOs are a great tool for financing start-ups.

As much as I’m against ICO scams and people using great technology for bad things – I feel as though this may be a necessary phase. In the same way, the internet was flooded with all sorts of good-for-nothing websites at the start, and the same way Bitcoin was used for all sorts of awful things during the first few years.

It will show that firstly, the framework works, and secondly, people are interested in it and know how to use it. The next step will be for the projects that are built for good and built to last to gain momentum and trust.

If a Tangle based ICO-storm does happen, it will be down to the people to weed out the good projects from the bad, and I’m confident that the good projects will be successful in the long-run and in a great position to make use of this cutting-edge technology to make the world a better, more efficient place.

Similar to the way Ethereum made blockchain technology widely-available and easily accessible, our goal is to bring the wonders of the Tangle Network to the people. We’re creating the tool, we’re not telling people how to use it.

5. What do you think will be the impact of blockchains in the next 5-10 years and especially IOTA which is already disrupting the “enterprise” blockchains of today?

I think it’s very important to distinguish between Distributed Ledger Technology and blockchain. Blockchain is a subcategory of DLT, as is the Tangle Network.

Many people like to refer to the crypto movement by calling it things like the ‘blockchain revolution’. Blockchain was a big step forward, there’s no doubt about it, but the technology has peaked young – blockchain is outdated. The Tangle network is the first example of a new breed of Distributed Ledger Technology that will pick up where blockchain left off and improve on it exponentially.

It’s obviously very difficult to predict precisely what will happen over the next few years in such a young, fast-moving industry – but I see DLT revolutionizing the way we do business. I see distributed ledgers bringing industries together and creating new applications, new markets, new economies. More and more real-world assets and ideas will be tokenized, and the token economy will begin to take hold of a more efficient, more inclusive world.

I’m a very firm believer in the IOTA project. I think it’s a great concept coming at a great time, and could have a really big impact on the machine-to-machine economies of the future, and beyond.

Thank you for your time and my best wishes for your efforts! We’re looking forward to your next projects and livestreams!

@TechCrunch Would love that for the cryptospace, together with a standard they had to accept like using primary sources, commentaries have to be marked as such and conflicts of interests should be marked at the beginning of an article. Crypto desperately needs a standard. #iota #btc #eth